WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump repeated his hardline stance on immigration during his record-long State of the Union on Tuesday, previewing a potential midterm campaign message as his party faces an uphill battle to keep a majority in the House.

“The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens,” Trump said.

His nearly two-hour speech before Congress came on the 11th day of a partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security. He called on Democrats to immediately fund the agency. 

Democrats have refused to approve new funding for DHS unless changes are made to enforcement tactics following the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis at the hands of federal immigration officers. 

Another vote to move forward on approving funding for DHS failed, 50-45, Tuesday mere hours before the president’s address to Congress.

Immigration enforcement has continued during the shutdown because the department has a separate funding stream Congress provided last year through the massive tax cuts and spending package. 

Rhetoric remains

Despite the controversy the months-long immigration operation in Minneapolis has created, Trump defended the operation and his views on immigration more generally, possibly signalling he does not plan to tone down his rhetoric in an election year.

He made racist remarks about the Somali refugee population in Minneapolis, referring to them as “Somali pirates” and accusing them of widespread fraud. 

He blamed the Biden administration for “importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders.” 

“We will take care of this problem,” he said.  

Trump also made another racist remark that immigrants “don’t speak English,” and called on Congress to pass legislation to bar immigrants in the country without legal authorization from obtaining commercial drivers licenses.

He also called for Congress to end so-called sanctuary cities, local jurisdictions that have policies to bar cooperation with the federal government’s immigration enforcement. 

Trump also called for Congress to pass a national voter ID requirement law to require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. 

The president did give a passing endorsement of legal immigration, saying early in the speech he would “always allow people to come in legally, people that will love our country and will work hard to maintain our country.”

Many of the groups he has targeted as president, though, including Minnesota’s Somali population, have legal authorization to be in the country.

Padilla blasts Trump approach

Democrats have seized on the unpopularity of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, where residential areas have experienced masked immigration agents and roving patrols. 

In a rebuke to Trump’s Speech, California Sen. Alex Padilla gave the Democratic response that aired across Spanish networks. 

“This country has always been shaped by people who were told they did not belong, but who persevered and kept moving forward,” he said in Spanish.

Last summer, federal law enforcement officials forcibly removed and handcuffed Padilla at a press conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles during protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the city.

The incident represented a stark escalation of tensions between Democrats and the Trump administration after the president ordered 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to quell the protests in Los Angeles. 

After Padilla, California’s first Latino senator, was released, he gave an emotional speech on the Senate floor that accused the president of using his home state as a testing ground for deploying the U.S. military domestically. 

In his response Tuesday, he addressed the incident at the Noem press conference.   

“They may have knocked me down for a moment, but I got right back up,” Padilla said. “As our parents taught us, if you fall seven times, get up eight. I am still here. Standing. Still fighting. And I know you are still standing and still fighting too.”

WASHINGTON — Some congressional Democrats boycotted President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, opting to attend counter-programming to protest the administration’s actions.

Lawmakers took to alternative stages in Washington, D.C., in rebukes of what they see as Trump’s lack of regard for constitutional norms, immigration enforcement tactics and response to the affordability crisis hitting American families.  

“Our democracy is wilting under ceaseless attack from a president who wants to be a despot,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut at the “People’s State of the Union” rally on the National Mall.

“Millions of Americans are losing their health care because the president has chosen corruption to pad the pockets of his billionaire friends instead of helping average Americans,” said Murphy, who serves as the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. 

The rally, hosted by progressive media company MeidasTouch and progressive advocacy group MoveOn, countered the president’s address to Congress. Lawmakers brought their own guests to the event, who rebuffed ongoing actions by the administration. 

Tuesday night also featured the “State of the Swamp” at the National Press Club, hosted by DEFIANCE.org, a resistance effort against Trump; the Portland Frog Brigade, a coalition of “artist-activists” and COURIER, an advocacy media network. 

The “State of the Swamp” event brought in several Democratic lawmakers, former Trump administration officials, current and former Democratic state leaders, as well as leading voices against the administration. 

‘A lawless president’

Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, described the State of the Union as a “state of denial” during the event on the National Mall. 

“What’s going to happen under that Capitol is a bunch of lies — lies that Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to tell us about how great this country is doing right now,” he said. “But what is true, what is happening right now, is that Donald Trump and the Republicans have made this country sicker, poorer and less secure.”

Democratic lawmakers continued to blast the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Those criticisms grew even louder after federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens last month in Minneapolis. 

The Department of Homeland Security is shut down as Congress and the administration try to iron out a solution to Democrats’ demands for additional restraints on immigration enforcement following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

“Now we know the state of our union,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat. “We know it is under attack from a lawless president who is shredding our Constitution and who is attacking our democracy — a president whose private (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) army executes Americans and then calls the victims domestic terrorists.” 

Epstein files

Democrats also lambasted the administration’s handling of the files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which faced criticism for its piecemeal rollout of the files and heavy redactions. 

Several Democratic lawmakers invited survivors of Epstein as their guests to Trump’s State of the Union address. 

“We should be crystal clear about right now what is happening in our country,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, during the rally on the National Mall. 

“We have a president who is leading the single largest government cover-up in modern history — we have the single largest sex trafficking ring in modern history right now being covered up by Donald Trump and (Attorney General) Pam Bondi in the Department of Justice,” Garcia said. 

Trump, who has appeared in several of the files, had a well-documented friendship with Epstein, but has maintained he had a falling-out with the disgraced financier and was never involved in any alleged crimes.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address Tuesday to lambaste Democrats and the Biden administration, while pitching the Republican Party to voters ahead of this year’s crucial midterm elections. 

“Tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before,” Trump said. “A turnaround for the ages. It is indeed a turnaround for the ages.”

The nearly two-hour speech included considerable back-and-forth between Democrats and Republicans in the chamber, especially when Trump brought up his immigration enforcement activities or GOP efforts to require proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Trump’s disdain for Democrats was on full display throughout the speech, when he alleged they wanted to “cheat” in elections and said Democrats pressing for lower costs and affordability was a “dirty, rotten lie.” 

“Their policies created the high prices. Our policies are rapidly ending them,” he said. “We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting down.”

But there were several moments of bipartisanship, including when Trump recognized U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe and his parents as well as the parents of the late U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, both of the West Virginia National Guard.

Beckstrom and Wolfe were shot just blocks from the White House the day before Thanksgiving while on duty in the District of Columbia. Beckstrom died as a result of her injuries the next day and Wolfe was badly injured. Both Beckstrom and Wolfe were awarded the Purple Heart by Major General James D. Seward, Adjutant General of the state of West Virginia, to the applause of lawmakers.

The U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team was also able to briefly unite Republicans and Democrats when players appeared in the gallery overlooking the chamber, wearing their gold medals. 

Members of both political parties gave the group a standing ovation and chanted “USA, USA, USA!” before the players left after a few minutes. They had met with Trump at the White House earlier in the day.

Sign held by Rep. Al Green

But there were reminders of deep divisions throughout the speech of historic length — the previous record for a State of the Union speech that was recorded was held by former President Bill Clinton.

Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green held up a sign at the beginning of Trump’s remarks that read “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES!” in reference to a racist meme in a video Trump shared on social media that depicted former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as primates.

A Sergeant at Arms employee escorted Green from the chamber a few minutes later as Republicans again chanted “USA!” Green last year was removed from the chamber during Trump’s joint address to Congress.

Trump didn’t just criticize Democrats during his speech, but also the Supreme Court justices who have ruled against his actions, most recently deciding that he overstepped by using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to implement tariffs. Four of the nine justices were seated in the chamber: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump said the tariffs decision was “unfortunate” and that the six justices who ruled against him “got it really wrong.”

Trump reiterated he would use other powers he believes he holds to keep the tariffs in place, arguing he thinks they are “saving the country.”

“They’re a little more complex, but they’re actually probably better, leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before,” he said. “Congressional action will not be necessary.”

Trump claimed that if tariffs remain they could replace income taxes, though Congress would need to approve legislation to eliminate that part of the tax code. 

Homeland Security shutdown

Trump spoke at length about immigration and border security during his speech before calling on Congress to end the shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, which began on Feb. 14 when stopgap funding expired. Democrats have insisted on immigration enforcement reforms.

“Tonight, I’m demanding the full and immediate restoration of all funding for the border security, homeland security of the United States,” he said.

Trump told lawmakers in the chamber to stand if they believed “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

Republicans stood and cheered loudly while Democrats stayed seated, with several of their members calling out their opposition to that part of the speech as well as Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement and deportation. 

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar said repeatedly “you have killed Americans” as Trump spoke about the DHS shutdown.

Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib yelled “Alex wasn’t a criminal,” referring to Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis in January, just weeks after federal immigration officers shot and killed Renee Nicole Good.

Tlaib later called out that Trump should release all of the Epstein files, referring to documents within the Department of Justice about the criminal investigation into child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

SAVE Act

Trump also called on Congress to pass legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.

He said that Americans should only be able to vote by mail if they are ill, disabled, in the military or traveling, though that provision isn’t included in the SAVE Act. 

“Congress should unite and enact this common sense, country-saving legislation right now,” he said. “And it should be before anything else happens.”

The House voted mostly along party lines earlier this month to send the bill to the Senate, where it is unlikely to get the Democratic support needed to move past that chamber’s 60-vote legislative filibuster. 

Trump alleged the only reason Democrats won’t help Republicans approve the legislation is because “they want to cheat.”

Boycotts of the speech

Some Democrats opted to attend other events or skip Trump’s speech entirely, citing the president’s immigration enforcement tactics, disregard for constitutional norms and record of false and misleading claims. 

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, ranking member on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said he decided not to go because Trump has “made a mockery of the State of the Union.”

“I have no obligation to be a backdrop to a partisan speech full of lies and vitriol,” Murphy said. “I’m heartbroken that I’m not going to be there. But he’s turned his speech into a joke.”

Many of those boycotting will attend counter-programming.

“The American people already know what the state of our union is,” said Indiana Democratic Rep. André Carson. “It is marked by frustration, rising costs, and deep exhaustion. Families are stretched thin by higher prices. Communities are disturbed by fatal immigration enforcement tactics. And working people are watching the wealthiest Americans benefit while the middle class is left behind.” 

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger gave the Democratic response following Trump’s remarks, asking three questions in her 12-minute speech.

“Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family? Is the president working to keep Americans safe — both at home and abroad? Is the president working for you? We all know the answer is no,” she said.

California Sen. Alex Padilla gave the Spanish-language response.

“This country has always been shaped by people who were told they did not belong, but who persevered and kept moving forward,” he said in Spanish.

Shauneen Miranda and Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. 

U.S. Sen Maria Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat, will register a protest of President Donald Trump’s attempt to exert more control over election infrastructure by bringing her state’s secretary of state, Steve Hobbs, as her guest to the State of Union Tuesday evening.

Trump has pressured senators to approve a House-passed bill that would require the public to produce a passport or birth certificate to register to vote, involve the federal Department of Homeland Security in elections and disallow universal vote-by-mail that is popular in Washington, Oregon and other states.

Members of Congress often bring guests to the State of the Union to spotlight particular issues and Democrats this year are raising a host of objections to the president’s tariffs program and his immigration crackdown — including a weekslong operation in Minneapolis that resulted in two U.S. citizens’ deaths at the hands of immigration agents — and other issues.

Cantwell told States Newsroom in a phone interview hours before Trump’s address was set to begin that changing election infrastructure could have more long term effects on U.S. democracy than other Trump policies.

“I’m not saying that the tariff issue didn’t have an impact,” Cantwell said. “I’m not saying it’s not horrific that you killed two American citizens who were just trying to express their rights to free speech. But you could upend a lot by changing our election system overnight. I don’t know how you recover from that immediately.”

The Republican bill would amount to nationalizing elections, a contradiction of the Constitution’s provision that states administer elections, Cantwell and Hobbs said.

The framers of the Constitution gave that power to states to protect against the executive branch overreaching, Hobbs said.

The bill would violate that idea, Cantwell said.

“We would be basically saying, ‘It’s okay for a federal leader … and their agency, Homeland Security, to mess around and determine who’s eligible to vote,” Cantwell said. “The reason the separation of powers exist is … so that you didn’t have that federal control, so that people did have faith that they weren’t being manipulated by the federal power.”

The GOP’s championing of the bill follows President Donald Trump’s comments advocating to nationalize elections, a mid-decade campaign to redraw state congressional districts in Republicans’ favor and more than two dozen Department of Justice lawsuits demanding Democratic-led states turn over unredacted voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security.

Senate rules at risk?

Cantwell’s worries about the bill, known as the SAVE Act, have grown after seeing Trump’s pressure campaign on Republicans, as well as a recent sign of support for the bill from moderate Republican Susan Collins of Maine and comments from the bill’s Senate sponsor, Mike Lee of Utah, about adjusting the chamber’s rules to ensure the bill’s passage.

And Cantwell said she expects Trump to mention the issue during Tuesday’s address.

Under Senate rules and tradition, 60 of the 100 senators must approve a procedural vote to move to final passage of nearly all legislation. With Republicans holding 53 seats, that means bills must have bipartisan support to pass the chamber. 

Lee has said he wanted to tweak Senate rules so that opponents of a bill would have to continuously speak on the floor to block consideration of a bill that would otherwise have the support to pass.

Cantwell said she and Hobbs would seek out opportunities Tuesday evening to bring Republicans to their side of the issue.

“He and I got a busy night tonight,” she said. “We gotta go buttonhole a bunch of Republican senators.”

Noncitizens and voting

Republican supporters of the bill say it will enhance election security and ensure that noncitizens do not vote in U.S. elections.

But noncitizens are already barred from federal elections and instances of voter fraud are exceedingly rare, even in studies by conservative groups.

And the bill presents several provisions that could reduce voter participation, Cantwell and Hobbs said. 

Many Americans do not have a passport or easy access to their birth certificate. Nearly 70 million married women have changed their names, creating an additional barrier to voter registration.

“I don’t think they’re thinking about these things,” Hobbs said.

The bill would also imperil Washington’s universal vote-by-mail system in which every voter is sent a ballot that can be returned through the mail. 

Vote by mail “has nothing to do with partisanship,” Hobbs said. “It’s about convenience of the voter to be able to take the time to choose the people they want to choose. It’s about security, it’s about transparency, it’s not partisanship.”

The system, which for years was popular among Republicans and Democrats for its convenience, became a partisan issue when Trump partially blamed his 2020 election loss on the mail-in voting increase put in place during that COVID-era election.

“We’re here to evangelize that this system has enfranchised people to vote more and have a higher turnout, which is what our goal should be,” Cantwell said Tuesday. “That’s why the League of Women Voters are on our side in this debate and against the SAVE Act, because the whole goal is to have a more participatory government and vote by mail is delivering that.”

A coalition of Wisconsin environmental advocacy groups filed a lawsuit Monday challenging an administrative law judge’s decision to uphold the Department of Natural Resource’s permit approval to reroute the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline across northern Wisconsin. 

The petition, filed in Iron County Circuit Court by Clean Wisconsin and Midwest Environmental Advocates on behalf of the Sierra Club, 350 Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, argues that the administrative law judge ignored extensive evidence that the pipeline reroute will damage local waterways. 

A similar lawsuit has also been filed by the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The tribe for years has fought against the pipeline, which currently runs across its land. The reroute is happening because a federal judge previously ruled the pipeline must be moved off tribal land, but the tribe argues the new proposed route will continue to harm its water resources. 

The administrative judge upheld the DNR’s permit decision after six weeks of hearings last year. The petitions from the environmental groups and the tribe move the case from the administrative legal process to the state’s court system. Separately, a challenge has been made against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Line 5 permit decisions. 

“We are more committed than ever to protecting Wisconsin’s waters from the irreversible harm this project threatens to cause. We believe the administrative ruling incorrectly decided critical legal and factual issues, and we are confident that our efforts to hold DNR and Enbridge accountable to Wisconsin’s environmental laws will ultimately be vindicated,” MEA Senior Staff Attorney Rob Lee said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany has enlisted U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in a long-running dispute between the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the town of Lac du Flambeau over the town residents’ access to roads on tribal land. 

Tiffany, the Republican candidate in Wisconsin’s race for governor this fall, has twice tried to get Bondi to weigh in on the issue, first in an August letter and then earlier this month when Bondi testified before the House Judiciary Committee Feb. 11. 

The dispute has been running since January 2023 when the tribe placed barricades on four roads after negotiations over easements between the tribe, town and title companies broke down. The town sits within the tribe’s reservation and cannot be accessed without crossing tribal land. 

The easements had expired, yet the town and its residents continued to use the tribal roads without payment, which the tribe said amounted to trespassing.The town paid at least $600,000 for road access and the tribe eventually removed the barricades but the federal government later sued the town on the tribe’s behalf. Last August, a federal judge sided with the town, ruling that the roads are public and must remain open. 

After the federal court ruling, a town resident told Wisconsin Public Radio that he was hopeful the decision would calm the chaos of the dispute and a town official said the tribe has been “patient” with the town despite the fact that the community essentially did not pay rent on its use of the land for a decade. 

But now the town has requested reimbursement for the payments it made to the tribe and, at the Feb. 11 committee hearing, Tiffany said the dispute amounted to “extortion.” 

“The perpetrators of this, the tribe out there, they demanded compensation from the town. I would call it extortion,” Tiffany said.

Bondi responded by saying “we would more than welcome working with you.” 

In a statement, Lac du Flambeau Tribal President John Johnson Sr. said the town’s payments to the tribe were “voluntary and lawful” and that Tiffany’s claim was “inaccurate and inflammatory.” 

“To mislead the public by calling the tribe ‘perpetrators’ is not only irresponsible, it is a direct attack on our sovereignty, our treaty rights and our reputation as a sovereign government,” Johnson said.

The Milwaukee Health Department and the Milwaukee Public Schools will spend the next year testing district schoolchildren for lead contamination.

On Tuesday, officials from the health department, the school district, City Hall and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met to review the ongoing program to address lead contamination in the school district.

The CDC has granted the health department $400,000 to expand its school lead-screening program at MPS. The grant will cover screening for up to 8,000 MPS students, the health department reported.

The school district is contracting with NOVIR to carry out screening clinics on the premises of district schools. Funds will also go to the Coalition on Lead Emergency (COLE) to inform school district families about the screening program.

“By bringing screening directly into schools, we’re making it easier for families to access testing and ensuring we stay focused on prevention, transparency, and long-term safety,” Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said in a health department press release.

Members of the CDC’s lead poisoning and prevention team are reviewing the work done in the last year by the city, the health department and the school district, as well as their plans for screening children in the coming year.

After children at two MPS schools were found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood, the health department inspected the schools and found high levels of lead dust in the buildings. The schools were temporarily closed, and more testing found additional schools with contamination.

Early in the unfolding crisis, promised assistance from the CDC’s lead-prevention team was abruptly canceled, among numerous reversals that the Trump administration made in federal programs and funding. The CDC team was reinstated several weeks later and resumed working with the state and local health departments.

A city health department screening program found scores more children with elevated blood levels. According to the health department, the district’s subsequent cleanup program stabilized lead paint in 99 elementary schools by the end of 2025.

As the Trump administration continues to focus on the legal immigration statuses of many across the country, a revived proposal by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development could impact many families’ ability to receive rental assistance.

The proposed rule would prohibit “mixed-status” families  —  those including U.S. citizens and people without legal immigration status — from living in public and other subsidized housing. It would apply to HUD public housing, Section 8 rental assistance, and some housing development grants. 

Current regulations allow mixed-status families to receive decreased assistance based on the number of household members with legal status. The proposed rule would limit that assistance to 30 days as HUD verifies family members’ legal status. 

HUD Secretary Scott Turner has said the change could redirect $218 million to other qualifying families. 

“The law is clear: Housing assistance must only go to eligible individuals. This requirement exists to protect the families and taxpayers who fund the nation’s welfare system. It draws a hard line,” Turner wrote last week in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. He wrote that some 24,000 people living in HUD-assisted housing are likely ineligible. 

HUD’s own analyses from previous mixed-status rule discussions estimated there are about 25,000 mixed-status households living in HUD-assisted housing, fewer than 1% of all households receiving federal rental aid.

The proposed rule would update regulations barring HUD from providing assistance to individuals who are not U.S. citizens or do not have legal or eligible immigration status. Under this proposal, all assistance-eligible tenants and applicants under housing programs — regardless of age  — would need to verify their citizenship or status.

This proposal was initiated in 2019 under the first Trump administration, but was blocked. The rule would remove the existing “do not contend” option, end certain exemptions for older participants and expand the use of Social Security numbers and the federal SAVE system for status verification. The SAVE system (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) is run under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and also is being used to help verify voter citizenship status and public benefits eligibility. 

Nearly three-quarters of potentially affected households live in California, Texas and New York, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analysis of HUD administrative data. California accounts for the largest share of affected families, followed by Texas and New York. In these states, thousands of households that currently receive prorated rental assistance could lose eligibility entirely if the rule is finalized, rental housing advocates warn.

These states also have high housing costs in concert with long waiting lists for assistance. The policy would primarily affect families with children, many of whom are U.S. citizens, and could increase demand for emergency housing and other local safety-net services, advocates say.

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates 80,000 people could lose housing assistance, including an estimated 37,000 children, nearly all of whom are U.S. citizens.

The proposal is open for public comment through April 21.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

After years of states pushing legislation to accelerate the development of data centers and the electric grid to support them, some legislators want to limit or repeal state and local incentives that paved their way.

President Donald Trump also has changed his tone. Last year he issued an executive order and other federal initiatives meant to support accelerated data center development. Then last month, he cited rising electricity bills in saying technology companies that build data centers must “pay their own way,” in a post on Truth Social.

As the momentum shifts, lawmakers in several states have introduced or passed legislation that aims to rein in data center development by repealing tax exemptions, adding conditions to certain incentives or placing moratoriums on data center projects. Virginia lawmakers, for example, are considering ending a data center tax break that costs the state about $1.6 billion a year.

“Who is actually benefiting from these massive data centers that, in many cases, are the size of one or two shopping malls combined?” asked Michigan Democratic state Rep. Erin Byrnes, who introduced a proposal to repeal the state’s data center tax exemptions. “They have a large footprint in terms of land and energy usage. And by and large, it’s not going to be the average resident who lives near a data center who’s going to benefit.”

Over the past few years, more data centers have been built in an effort to meet the demand for digital processing power, which has rapidly increased as more artificial intelligence systems come online. Data centers house thousands of servers that are responsible for storing and transmitting data required for internet services to work.

But as local communities voice growing outrage over rising electricity prices and environmental concerns brought by data centers, such as water and energy use, lawmakers in several states are hoping to slow data center development. By limiting incentives or placing moratoriums on new projects, state legislators are hoping to give themselves more time to determine whether the massive facilities are worth losing millions or more in tax revenue each year.

Some experts also say that developers and tech companies have exaggerated some of the benefits they bring to local communities. While the promise of new jobs sounds attractive, local leaders may face other concerns, such as the effects of diverting construction resources away from other purposes and higher energy costs caused by AI, said Michael Hicks, an economics professor at Ball State University in Indiana.

“A lot of households — and the people that are elected by households — and local governments are becoming more unnerved by the public pushback to data centers,” Hicks said.

Tech developers and data center operators are concerned, however, that the changes could hurt the rapidly growing industry. And most states and localities already require developers using incentives to follow certain requirements, said Dan Diorio, the vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, a lobbying group for the data center industry.

State lawmakers have to consider how changes to incentive programs could upend years of construction, which has long-term business impacts, Diorio said.

“I think data centers are very much the backbone of the 21st-century economy,” he said. “We’re generating economic activity in states, contributing to state-level GDP, contributing significantly to labor income and state and local tax revenue, and creating significant amounts of jobs. I mean, we’re just jumping into something preemptively here.”

Incentives granted

At least 37 states offer incentives that are available to data centers, including sales tax exemptions and property tax abatements, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Sales tax exemptions, the most common incentive, allow data center developers to buy computers and other equipment at a much lower cost.

“I think these are one of many factors that the data centers are looking at, along with the cost of electricity, the cost of construction, land and things like that,” said Nicholas Miller, a policy associate at NCSL. “These incentives are one way that states are trying to pitch themselves as competitive to this industry.”

In 2020, Maryland implemented a program that exempts data centers from sales and use taxes if they provide at least five jobs within three years of applying to the program and invest at least $2 million in data center personal property. The first four years of the program cost the state $22 million — but $11 million of that came in 2024 alone, as the costs grew, Democratic state Del. Julie Palakovich Carr said.

Concerned about this and the impact of data centers on residents’ electricity bills, Palakovich Carr introduced legislation this year that would repeal the state’s sales and use tax exemptions for personal property used at data centers. The measure, which is under consideration in the House, would also restrict localities in the state from eliminating or reducing assessments for personal property used in data centers, which drew opposition from the Maryland Association of Counties.

The amount of money states are forfeiting to provide tax breaks for data centers is increasingly concerning, Palakovich Carr said.

“Unfortunately, that’s the turn we’re seeing across many other states,” she said. “The price starts out maybe in line with what we think it’s going to be. But over time it just costs more and more.”

Similar bills that would repeal or halt state incentives for data centers have been filed in Arizona and Georgia.

“When we look at potential subsidies for businesses, I’m really looking at it from a frame of incentivizing new behavior rather than just giving away money for things that the companies were going to already do anyways,” Palakovich Carr said. “I think it’s really important that once these things get put in place, we look at the data and see what’s happening on the ground.”

In 2024, Michigan enacted sales and use tax exemptions on certain data centers through at least 2050.

Now, with developers looking at more than a dozen sites for potential data centers, public sentiment has soured, said Byrnes, who had voted against the measure. Communities across the state began organizing in an effort to stop data centers from coming to their neighborhoods because of environmental concerns and energy costs, she said.

The outcry prompted Byrnes to co-sponsor a bipartisan package of three bills that would repeal the 2024 law.

“We’re taking a stand with this legislation to say that we don’t believe data centers should be offered these exemptions,” she said. “I believe it aligns with public sentiment.”

Lawmakers in a handful of states — including New York, Oklahoma and Vermont — have filed bills that would place a temporary moratorium on all data center projects and require studies of their impacts.

Georgia Democratic state Rep. Ruwa Romman introduced a measure this session that would put a moratorium on new data center projects until March 2027. The proposal would give the legislature time to study the impact of data centers on the state’s natural resources, environment and other areas.

“We have such a beautiful state and it would be a damn shame to completely and utterly wreck it and its landscape for short-term gain,” Romman said. “These data centers aren’t bringing jobs. They’re saying they’re bringing the revenue, but there’s a ton of fine print on the revenue that’s coming in. So, I’ve been urging my colleagues from every side of the political spectrum to just take a beat.”

In 2021, the Oklahoma legislature approved a measure from current Republican House Speaker Kyle Hilbert that excludes new data centers from qualifying for an exemption program that allows certain manufacturers not to pay property taxes for their first five years in business. Any data centers that qualified for the program in the five years prior to the law, however, can continue to apply for exemptions.

This year, as more project proposals were made, Hilbert introduced legislation to ensure no data centers could “slip through the cracks.”

“These aren’t the days of being able to build a data center, cut deals with NDAs, then start turning dirt before the constituents even know what’s happened,” Hilbert said. “Those days are over, and data centers need to be proactive in their messaging and talking to people about their concerns.”

Costs vs. benefits

Last year, Virginia, home to the most data centers in the country, gave up $1.6 billion in sales and use tax revenues from data centers, state data shows. That’s a 118% increase from the previous year, according to a report from Good Jobs First, a watchdog group that focuses on economic development incentives. Another report from the group said Georgia is expected to lose at least $2.5 billion to data center sales tax exemptions this year, 664% higher than the state’s previous estimate.

Virginia state lawmakers are considering legislation that would require data centers to achieve high energy efficiency standards and decrease their use of diesel backup generators in order to be eligible for the state’s sales and use tax exemption. The measure, which passed the House, is now moving through the Senate.

Before the end of his term, former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, suggested a provision in his proposed state budget that would extend the data center tax incentive from 2035 to 2050. The Senate’s budget bill, however, would end the incentive altogether on Jan. 1, 2027. It’s not clear if state leaders, including current Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, support the measure.

While states can put a specific number on the tax losses, it’s much more difficult to determine how much data centers contribute to local communities and the state, Miller said.

Virginia brings in a significant amount of revenue from the property taxes for each facility. Local construction firms, restaurants and other small businesses also benefit from ongoing projects, he said.

“This is the big question,” Miller said. “With all economic development projects, it’s generally a lot easier to measure the cost of the incentive directly versus the benefits.”

The changing incentive landscape may cause instability within the data center industry, said Diorio, of the Data Center Coalition. Data center projects are large-scale capital investments that play out for several years, but changing policies could upend that progress.

“When states look at these policies or consider abrupt ends to programs, that creates significant market uncertainty,” Diorio said. “It will have a significant long-term impact on the viability of that market for data center development. Industries are very responsive to market signals, and any kind of uncertainty will bring up a red flag because you’re looking to invest for the long haul.”

Stateline reporter Madyson Fitzgerald can be reached at mfitzgerald@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats will spend billions of dollars and countless hours campaigning throughout the country ahead of November’s midterm elections, even though control of Congress likely will be decided by a relatively small number of toss-up races and the voters who actually turn out to cast a ballot for their preferred candidate.

There are just four Senate races out of 35 and 18 House districts out of 435 where each candidate has even odds of winning, according to analysis from The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. The rest are categorized as leaning, likely or solidly for one party or the other. Some ratings potentially will still shift in a turbulent election year. 

When combined with the generally low turnout for midterm elections, which only topped 50% once during the last century, an especially narrow margin of Americans could determine whether President Donald Trump and Republicans retain their trifecta political control of Washington for the last two years of Trump’s term.

A Senate flip from Republican to Democratic control would have sweeping impacts, including which nominees for vacancies in the Trump administration, federal judgeships and any openings on the Supreme Court are confirmed. 

A House shift from red to blue would likely determine whether Trump and possibly members of his Cabinet face impeachment proceedings in that chamber. 

The most likely outcome experts see at this early stage is for Republicans to lose the House and keep the Senate, possibly with a slimmer majority in the upper chamber. However, that could change in the months ahead as primary election results determine which candidates advance to the November general elections. 

The first primaries are scheduled for March 3 and roll through September, with 16 in June alone.

Highly publicized efforts by several Republican and Democratic state legislatures to redraw the boundaries of their U.S. House seats could also be a variable. But, so far, neither party has gained any real advantage, according to analysis from Erin Covey, Cook Political Report’s editor for the House.

“While it’s not clear how many states will have new maps in 2026, we project that the likeliest scenario is a wash, with neither party netting seats due to redistricting,” she wrote. 

The stakes will be high for the handful of competitive general election races and the attention there will be intense. Leaders from both political parties, as well as outside groups, are likely to focus their spending and campaign ads on those relatively few contests and voters that will determine control of Congress. 

Trump impeachment fears

Trump has repeatedly lamented the historic norm that a president’s party tends to lose seats during the midterms, including in January when he addressed House Republicans at the Kennedy Center.  

“Whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat, whoever wins the presidency, the other party wins the midterm,” he said. “And it doesn’t make sense because … we’ve had the most successful first year of any president in history.”

Trump also warned that if Republicans lose the House, he’ll face impeachment proceedings for the third time. He was impeached twice during his first administration.

“You got to win the midterms because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be, I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” he said. “I’ll get impeached.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., are confident GOP candidates will win enough races to ensure they maintain control over what bills come to the floor and which are held back from debate. 

“I think they’re going to give it to the grown-ups,” Johnson said during a press conference in early February. “I think the Republicans will be able to continue and grow our majority to keep governing.” 

Johnson said during a separate press conference he believes Americans should have confidence in the results of the midterm elections, but pressed for the Senate to pass a new, nationwide voter ID requirement that House lawmakers recently approved.

“I think we can trust the outcome of the election but what I will tell you is there is still a great concern that in certain pockets of the country that there’s not strict enforcement of the laws,” Johnson said. 

It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and anyone found guilty could face fines and up to a year in prison. There are limited instances of people not eligible to vote actually casting a ballot, according to analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center of data compiled by the Heritage Foundation, an especially conservative think tank. 

BPC’s examination “found only 77 instances of noncitizens voting between 1999 and 2023” and that “there is no evidence that noncitizen voting has ever been significant enough to impact an election’s outcome.”

Democrats battle for control

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both from New York, are equally as confident as their GOP counterparts that Democrats will regain power, though primary elections are a factor.  

Jeffries said during a mid-February press conference he supports every single House Democrat seeking reelection, calling primaries “a reality” of the country’s political system while also taking a swipe at the Senate. 

“Every two years we have to go back to the people to make an argument, to persuade them to renew our two-year employment contract. That’s just a way of life,” he said. “It must be nice to have a six-year term. But we don’t have the luxury, so that’s going to mean in many districts across the country that there will be active primaries.”

Democrats need to pick up four more Senate seats to retake control of that chamber, particularly long odds given this year’s map. 

The Cook Political Report classifies Senate races in Georgia, Maine, Michigan and North Carolina as toss-ups, giving Democrats two possible additions if they can hold onto the open seat in the Wolverine State and Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia secures reelection. 

The open New Hampshire seat leans toward remaining in the hands of a Democrat, while Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan and Ohio Sen. Jon Husted’s seats lean toward those Republicans securing reelection. 

The open Minnesota seat will likely remain blue, the report forecasts. The open Iowa seat and Texas are likely to stay Republican. The remainder of the Senate campaigns are rated as solid for Democrats or Republicans. 

Besides the 18 House seats categorized as toss-ups by Cook, another 14 lean toward Democrats and four lean toward Republicans. That means just 8% of House races are truly or somewhat competitive, though that is likely to fluctuate after the primaries determine which candidates advance to the general election. 

The GOP holds a very thin 218-214 House majority, with three vacancies, making even a few Republican losses highly problematic for that party’s leadership team and beneficial for Democrats. 

‘Even a few seats might make a difference’

Timothy M. Hagle, associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa, said during midterm elections “the party that’s not in control of the White House usually does pretty well, picks up some seats and so forth.

“And so, given how closely divided the U.S. House and Senate are, even a few seats might make a difference.”

Hagle said people who don’t feel strongly about one political party or another, often referred to as independent or swing voters, will expect candidates to provide solutions for “kitchen table issues,” like jobs, health care and the cost of living. 

“You’ve got to reach beyond your base if you expect to win an election,” he said.

But Hagle noted it’s increasingly difficult for politicians to convince people to vote, even as the internet and social media have become woven into everyday life, giving candidates a better chance to have their messages heard directly. 

Voter turnout data from the University of Florida Election Lab shows fewer than half of eligible voters cast ballots in midterm elections during the last century, with the exception of 2018, when it reached a peak of 50.1%. 

“And one aspect of this that’s a little more on the modern side is that our politics today is so partisan, it’s hyper-partisan, and I think it has turned a lot of people off,” Hagle said. “And so they really just don’t want to get involved in it.”

When that’s rolled in with mid-cycle redistricting in several states and the longer term decline in competitive seats due to gerrymandering, Hagle said, it’s led some politicians to change how they communicate with voters. 

“You do see attempts by the parties to talk about … things they’ve accomplished,” he said. “Republicans are in control, so they have to do this. And Democrats will say, ‘Well, here’s sort of what we want to do.’ But one problem there is that it’s often easier to motivate people through fear.”

“In other words, if a party is doing a good job, people will say, ‘Okay, good. That’s sort of what you were hired to do. So keep at it.’ Whereas if you say, ‘Oh, this party, if you leave them in control or put them in control, they’re going to do these horrible things.’ That tends to motivate,” Hagle added. “And that’s one of the reasons why you see such toxic messaging.”

Milwaukee Ald. Alex Brower was aware of fears in his community about immigration enforcement. Like many Wisconsinites, Brower had watched as Operation: Metro Surge in Minnesota led to thousands of arrests, community resistance, and the killings of Renee Good, and Alex Pretti by federal agents and the nonfatal shooting of Julio Sosa Colis. Hundreds of residents packed a town hall Brower held in early February. “People are ready to be engaged,” Brower told the Wisconsin Examiner. “People are just sick of what’s going on.”

On Wednesday, elected officials will host a bilingual ICE awareness community discussion on Milwaukee’s South Side. Earlier this month, Brower and other Milwaukee alders announced a package of local ordinances that aim to prepare Milwaukee for a surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.  

The package would require all ICE agents to be unmasked when interacting with the public in Milwaukee, and prohibit agents from staging raids on county property such as libraries and parks. Ald. JoCasta Zamarripa said that the local push is “an effort to deescalate fear, tensions and confusion,” WUWM reported. Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic said at the alders’ Feb. 11 news conference, “I stand here today to talk about something we can say yes to…You heard a lot of what we’re willing to say no to. We’re going to set the standards high in the city of Milwaukee, the largest city in the state of Wisconsin, that is built on our diversity. It is our strength.” 

Common Council President Ald. Jose Perez joined Zamarripa, Brower, Dimitrijevic, and community members in announcing the package. The proposals will need to be approved by the council, and then head to Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s desk. The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America have also been circulating a letter writing campaign to compel the common council to sign the ICE Out package. Over 1,800 letters have been sent so far, with the group’s goal being a total of 3,200 letters.

People in Milwaukee want to see their local government try to do something to protect against abuses by the federal government, even city ordinances could be struck down in court, Brower said. When he asked residents who attended his town hall if they would want local officials to at least try to do something, he told the Examiner, the crowd unanimously yelled “yes!”

“So many people are ready, themselves individually, to take action,” he said, ”either by supporting a mutual aid effort, getting trained to be an ICE verifier, or participating in any sort of picketing or protesting that happens at the site of an ICE abduction. So that’s No. 1 – I heard that almost universally. And then the second thing that I heard was that people want the City of Milwaukee to do everything it can to fight ICE.”

A question for local law enforcement 

As a matter of policy, the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) does not engage in immigration enforcement. MPD’s policy states that “proactive immigration enforcement by local police can be detrimental to our mission and policing philosophy when doing so deters some individuals from participating in their civic obligation to assist the police.” 

The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office — which oversees the county jail — does not hold people in custody for ICE. Prior to the arrest and conviction of former Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, local judges had been debating the creation of a draft policy after several immigration arrests by plain-clothes federal agents at the county courthouse.

Limiting cooperation with ICE is a philosophy shared by some police departments across the country, but not all. Under the second administration of President Donald Trump, more sheriffs and police departments have joined the federal 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to conduct immigration enforcement. The counties of Waukesha and Washington, which border Milwaukee County to the west and north, both have 287(g) agreements.

For counties that do not want to collaborate with ICE, it’s not clear what can be done to avoid the warrantless searches, mass arrests, and use of force Chicago and Minneapolis have experienced. When asked how police would respond to a Minneapolis or Chicago-style immigration surge, the Milwaukee Police Department said it would rely on its existing policies. Beyond that, however, the department said “we do not have an operation like Chicago therefore cannot provide information about a policy of something that we do not have in our city.”

Brower said that answers provided by MPD officials who attended his town hall did not satisfy community members. “I chimed in as well, sharing with the police department, and with those present, that I believe that MPD should commit to the very least investigating, if not arresting, individuals who break the law,” even if they’re federal agents. 

Back in 2020, when masked and militarized federal agents cracked down on Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland and other cities, then-Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm responded to videos showing people being beaten, sprayed, gassed and arrested by agents who also loaded detainees into unmarked vehicles, saying, “Kidnapping, false imprisonment, unlawful assault, those are crimes.” 

“Those are crimes no matter who commits them,” Chisholm said in 2020, “whether you’re a federal agent or a citizen. You can’t do that, not in the United States, and it won’t be tolerated here.” 

Would a shooting investigation be independent in Wisconsin?

After federal agents killed Good and Pretti within three weeks of each other, local and state officials in Minnesota called for independent investigations. Yet the federal government refused, and even blocked Minnesota state law enforcement investigators from accessing the scenes of the two killings. That lack of cooperation from the federal government continues today, as the FBI refuses to provide access to evidence from the Pretti shooting to Minnesota’s state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). 

In a statement reported by the Minnesota Reformer, the state agency’s superintendent Drew Evans said that “while this lack of cooperation is concerning and unprecedented, the BCA is committed to thorough, independent and transparent investigations of these incidents, even if hampered by a lack of access to key information and evidence.” Recently, ICE was also admitted that two of its agents are currently being investigated after giving false statements under oath about the non-fatal shooting of Sosa-Celis. Sosa-Celis originally faced felony charges for assaulting an officer, but those charges have now been dropped. 

Wisconsin state law prevents police from leading investigations into fatal shootings of civilians by members of their own agencies. Passed a decade after the Kenosha Police Department quickly cleared a killing by one of its officers, the Michael Bell law has required that such investigations be led by an agency uninvolved in the death. Local prosecutors then decide whether officers will be charged or cleared. 

Which agency leads the investigation depends on where you are. While the state Department of Justice (DOJ) leads many officer-involved shooting investigations across Wisconsin, sometimes local police departments and sheriffs need to step in. Since 2015, a component of the Wisconsin DOJ known as the Division of Criminal Investigation has investigated 136 killings of civilians by police from Racine to Blue Mounds, New Berlin to Pine River. 

In Milwaukee, however, those sorts of investigations are led by a group of nearly two dozen law enforcement agencies from Milwaukee County, Waukesha and Brookfield, known as the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT). The team, which has existed for over a decade, rotates responsibility for investigating officer-involved deaths between its various member agencies. MAIT’s practices, however, have been criticized for being too lenient to officers who kill civilians. 

The Examiner asked both MAIT and the Wisconsin DOJ how an investigation into a shooting by a federal agent would be handled, especially considering that DHS had prevented local agencies from accessing evidence. A DOJ spokesperson said in an emailed statement that “investigations of officer-involved critical incidents should be conducted fully, transparently, and impartially by an independent agency.” The statement added that the state DOJ’s Department of Criminal Investigation “regularly serves in this independent investigatory role and is prepared to investigate if necessary.”

But MAIT will only investigate incidents involving its own members, the team’s appointed commander, Wauwatosa Police Department Lt. Joseph Roy, wrote in an emailed statement to the Examiner. “MAIT is not a department, entity, or unit,” Roy said. Instead, he described MAIT as “a cooperative effort” which has not partnered with any federal agency to date. “Per our bylaws, MAIT is restricted to investigating officer-involved shootings from agencies in the cooperative. While we share a close partnership with our local federal entities, MAIT would not investigate those incidents. That responsibility would lie with the jurisdiction in which the shooting occurred, in coordination with the involved agency.”

If federal immigration agents killed someone within the jurisdiction of a MAIT member agency, such as Milwaukee or Wauwatosa, then that local agency would need to rely on its own resources to investigate, and coordinate with the federal agency responsible for the shooting. 

Although shootings by federal agents are rare in Milwaukee, they’re not unheard of. In 2017, task force officers from the city police departments of West Allis and Milwaukee were working alongside Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents to track down 32-year-old Jermaine Claybrooks as part of a drug investigation. WISN reported that Claybrooks sped away in his vehicle upon realizing that unmarked vehicles were attempting to block him in, crashing into a nearby tree. Officers said that Claybrooks appeared to be armed as they broke out his windows, and fired when they said he pointed a gun. 

Although local media and prosecutors focused on the DEA’s involvement, a DHS agent’s firearm was also inspected by investigators. More recently, DEA agents have supported arrest teams for immigration operations, including the team former Judge Dugan confronted outside her courtroom last year. 

The Claybrooks investigation was handled by an early version of MAIT called the Milwaukee County Suburban Investigations Team, with the Wauwatosa Police Department serving as the lead agency. Later that year, prosecutors decided against charging the officers who shot Claybrooks. Although this earlier iteration of MAIT did investigate a shooting involving federal agents, the team in its current form would not step in. 

Brower said that at the very least, he’d expect MPD to “at least attempt” to conduct a serious investigation. During his town hall, Brower said that law enforcement officials expressed doubts that prosecutors would be able to secure a conviction against federal agents who kill local residents during immigration operations. “OK, that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t try,” he said. 

A community preparing itself

On Wednesday, local elected officials will host a bilingual ICE awareness community discussion at the Sister Joel Read Conference Center on the campus of Alverno College. Dubbed the “Safety in Numbers: Protecting Our Historically Immigrant South Side” meeting, the discussion will provide residents another opportunity to share their concerns about immigration enforcement, and prepare for a surge in Milwaukee.

“As an immigrant-rich community, the South Side deserves clear, accurate information and reassurance that our local institutions are focused on safety, dignity, and the rule of law,” said Ald. Peter Burgelis. “This meeting is about empowering residents with knowledge, connecting them to trusted resources, and making sure people know they are not alone.” 

County Supervisor Sky Capriolo said in a statement that “community safety starts with transparency and trust.” Capriolo said that “by bringing people together and sharing accurate information, we can reduce fear, combat misinformation, and strengthen our neighborhoods.” MPD Chief Jeffrey Norman, Milwaukee County Sheriff Danita Ball, and representatives from Voces de la Frontera and the Milwaukee Turners will also attend the Wednesday community meeting. 

Tamping down on misinformation has been a growing concern in Milwaukee, with unverified rumors of ICE agents roaming the city having floated around since January. The city and county governments in Milwaukee have also created Know Your Rights resource webpages. 

“Our South Side is strong because of its diversity and deep sense of community,” Zamparripa said in a statement ahead of the Wednesday meeting. “This conversation is about standing together, ensuring residents know their rights, and reinforcing that Milwaukee is a city that values all of its people.” 

A Milwaukee alder who is seeking the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin secretary of state is calling on state officials to investigate the shipping supplies company Uline Inc.’s past use of workers from Mexico after a recent newspaper report about the practice.

Milwaukee alder JoCasta Zamarripa posted a statement on Facebook on Friday, Feb. 13, after The Guardian published an interview with a former Uline worker from Mexico. The worker said he was brought to the U.S. under a training visa but assigned to do routine work, with no training component.

Immigration lawyers told The Guardian that if the now-canceled program arranged for  Mexican workers to enter the U.S. with a training visa but instead deployed them to do regular work at the company, that would violate the law governing the training visa program.

“Wisconsin needs to demand transparency,” Zamarripa told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview. “We need to call for an investigation and hold people accountable.”

Zamarripa, a former Wisconsin state representative from Milwaukee, now represents a South Side district in the Milwaukee city council. She’s one of three Democrats who have declared their intention to seek the party’s nomination in the August primary to run for secretary of state in November.

The Guardian story, along with previous reports from the newspaper published in December 2024 and in February 2025, alleged that Uline brought workers from Mexico under tourist visas or special training visas and put them to work in plants in Wisconsin, Florida and Pennsylvania.

Under Uline’s “shuttle program,” which ran for several years, the workers brought from Mexico were doing normal jobs in the company’s factories and were not part of a genuine training program, according to the Guardian.

In its most recent story, the Guardian reported that the newspaper’s sources said the shuttle program was discontinued in 2024, shortly after the first story was published.

Uline, based in Pleasant Prairie in Kenosha County, is a multi-billion-dollar manufacturer and seller of cardboard boxes and other shipping and office supplies. The closely held company had estimated revenues of more than $8 billion, BizTimesMKE reported in 2024, and has more than 9,000 employees with operations in Canada and Mexico as well as across the United States. Uline has not commented about any of the Guardian’s reporting on the shuttle program.

Bankrolling GOP politicians

The Wisconsin Examiner contacted Uline Monday asking for the company’s response to the newspaper’s articles and was directed to a voice mail line described as a direct message channel for the company’s co-founder and co-owner, Richard Uihlein. The other co-founder and co-owner is his wife, Liz Uihlein, the company president.

The Examiner left a voicemail message as well as email and telephone contact information. As of press time, the company has not replied.

In an interview, Zamarripa said she would call on state officials to investigate the company’s practices and potential legal violations.

Both the Uihleins have been among the top donors supporting Republican candidates closely aligned with President Donald Trump. Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at a rally at a Uline plant in Pennsylvania in December, promoting the Trump administration’s economic record.

In the 2024 presidential race, Richard Uihlein’s Restoration Pact, a Super Pac, funded a television advertisement that attacked Trump’s opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, “for allowing an immigrant ‘invasion’ at the US-Mexico border,” the Guardian reported in its story that December about the shuttle program.

A 2022 report by ProPublica and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that in the 2021-22 cycle the Uihleins were the top donors nationally to Republican causes in federal elections at $60 million, and spent at least $121 million on state and federal politics combined in that period.

 The couple also bankrolled political candidates who were among prominent deniers of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won but Trump has repeatedly and falsely insisted was stolen, ProPublica reported.

Zamarripa contrasted those and other reports with the findings that the Guardian reported.

“The billionaire Uihlein family — among the biggest Republican mega-donors in the nation — have helped bankroll the very politicians, including Donald Trump, behind today’s out-of-control immigration crackdowns,” Zamarripa wrote in the statement published on the Facebook page for her campaign organization.

“Now we learn that workers in Pleasant Prairie say Mexican employees were pushed into dangerous, exhausting conditions and punished for speaking up — all while fueling Uline’s enormous wealth,” Zamarripa wrote.

Former worker goes on record

The Guardian’s 2024 and 2025 stories quoted anonymous sources “with direct knowledge of” and “ familiar with” the shuttle program as well as some unnamed Mexican workers brought to the U.S. for the program. The reports also included information from documents that the newspaper obtained.

The February 2026 story marked the newspaper’s first interview with a named former worker for the company. The Guardian reported that the worker, Christian Valenzuela, 42, shared travel itineraries from Uline documenting that he had worked at plants in Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin.

The Guardian reported that Valenzuela provided a letter directed to Customs and Border Protection and signed by a Uline official. The April 13, 2023, letter sought a B1 training visa for Valenzuela. The letter also outlined a daily training schedule for him and said he would be tested on the training, according to the Guardian — but no test was ever given.

Valenzuela told the Guardian that he and other Mexican workers were paid a bonus along with gas money and accommodations while they were in the U.S. working for the company. But the wages for the visiting workers were set  at the usual Mexican wage, which the newspaper reported “was a fraction of what their American counterparts earned.”

He told the Guardian he was dropped from the program while he was in Mexico seeking treatment for an on-the-job injury at Uline during his U.S. sojourn.

The newspaper’s previous reports quoted immigration lawyers who said that the use of training visas when the visa holders were doing regular line work rather than engaging in an actual training program appears to have violated federal immigration law.

States are scrambling to meet rising demand for newly expanded school choice initiatives, pouring more money into the programs as waiting lists — and budget concerns — grow.

A further boost is expected next year, when the federal government rolls out a new policy allowing taxpayers to claim a tax credit for up to $1,700 in donations to nonprofits that award private school scholarships to K-12 students.

Supporters tout such programs as a lifeline for parents desperate to get their kids out of failing public schools, while opponents have long warned that they drain resources from public education as students move from public schools to private ones.

For years, voucher and scholarship programs providing taxpayer dollars for private school tuition were limited to low-income or special needs students. In 2022, however, Arizona became the first state to allow all students to use public money for private school tuition. By next school year, at least 17 states are expected to have universal programs — making roughly half of U.S. students eligible to receive money, according to FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University.

As both universal and limited programs spread across the country, many families are eager to participate.

In Alabama, more than 36,000 students last spring applied for 14,000 spots in the state’s new program, prompting Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to propose increasing its funding from $180 million to $250 million for the 2027-28 school year, when income limits will be eliminated.

In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has proposed removing the budget cap on a scholarship program that turned away 5,600 students a couple of years ago because it ran out of money. And in Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee has proposed doubling the funding for a scholarship program that has a waitlist of about 34,000 students.

“Last year, we gave families school choice with the Education Freedom Scholarship program, because parents know best,” Lee said in his State of the State address last month. “Growing the program would open the doors of opportunity for thousands more children statewide.”

South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster and Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe also are seeking more money for school choice programs.

“So far what we’ve really seen is legislatures looking to expand the programs,” said Andrew Handel, director of education and workforce development at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a membership group for conservative state lawmakers that has pushed for choice programs nationwide.

“The ESA [education savings account] is the gold standard. It’s the one that gives parents the most flexibility,” he said, referring to programs that allow parents to use the money for other education-related expenses in addition to tuition. “The best states are where the funding for those school choice programs is tied directly to their state education formula. That ensures that no matter how many families apply, you’re always going to have the money there.”

But in Arizona, the first state with a universal program, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has become an outspoken critic.

Hobbs last month criticized the program, approved under her Republican predecessor, as an “entitlement program” that “continues to operate unchecked, squandering taxpayer dollars with no accountability.” She has proposed scaling back the program to its original scope, when it was limited to children with disabilities and military families.

The program serves more than 100,000 students — about 1 in 10 K-12 students — and cost the state about $872 million in fiscal 2025, according to the Grand Canyon Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. In addition to offering vouchers to pay private school tuition, it allows money to be spent on certain school supplies.

A recent audit by the Arizona Department of Education found that about 20% of Empowerment Scholarship Account dollars were used for unauthorized purchases, including iPhones, lingerie, jewelry and other luxury items, according to documents obtained earlier this month by the television station 12News in Arizona.

At least 45% of the kids receiving aid in Arizona were never enrolled in public schools, 12News recently reported. In some states, the percentage is even higher: In the 2023-24 school year, about two-thirds of the students participating in scholarship programs in Arkansas and Iowa were already attending private schools.

Those numbers have handed ammunition to critics who argue that universal programs are creating two parallel education systems, both funded by taxpayers.

“Every state that’s passed a voucher system has had to slow down its per-pupil funding for public schools,” said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. “Whether they take it directly out of school aid or fund it from another pot, it’s all the same budget.

“States can’t afford to run two systems.”

The waiting lists prove that many families would like to send their children to private schools, but it’s difficult to determine whether they get a better education there: Unlike public schools, private schools can turn away students, and in many states private school students don’t take the same standardized tests, so comparing academic performance is difficult.

Patrick Wolf, a professor at the University of Arkansas who studies school choice programs, noted that in his state, students with disabilities made up 48% of first-year participants. The percentage declined to 36% the second year, but that was still nearly three times the rate of disability in the general population.

Wolf argued that choice programs can help public schools by providing competition, forcing them to adapt.

“The traditional public schools can lose students who didn’t really want to be there, and that can be a pressure release valve,” he said. “What we’ve seen when private school choice programs launch is that public school test scores often go up slightly.

“The competitive effects are either neutral or positive,” he said. “They communicate more effectively with parents. They offer new programs targeted to the kinds of students they’re afraid might leave.”

Going big in Texas

Earlier this month, Texas launched what is likely to be the nation’s largest school choice program.

The new pre-K to 12th grade scholarship program is open to any U.S. citizen or immigrant in the country legally (public schools are open to everybody), but funding will be capped at $1 billion for the 2026-2027 school year. If state lawmakers choose to spend more in future years, the cost could rise to nearly $5 billion by 2030, according to a legislative fiscal note. The state’s current biennial budget is close to $340 billion.

Most participating students who want to attend a private school will be eligible for about $10,470 per year, while students with disabilities can receive up to $30,000. Families who want to homeschool their child can get $2,000.

This year, Texas will give priority to students with disabilities, families with lower incomes, and children enrolled in public and charter schools. Starting next year, the guidelines will be adjusted to favor the siblings of current students and new applicants.

Strongly backed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, the program drew more than 42,000 applications when it opened on Feb. 4, according to state officials. As of Feb. 18, the state had received a total of 111,000 applications. Texans can apply through March 17.

Travis Pillow, a senior official overseeing implementation, said the state partnered with Odyssey, a vendor that has administered similar programs in other states, to automate eligibility verification using state IDs and federal tax returns, since Texas does not have a state income tax.

Officials say more than three-quarters of applicants were verified the same day they applied, a benchmark they argue is critical to maintaining momentum and public confidence.

Pillow said Texas lawmakers are required to consider waitlist numbers in future appropriations decisions, and early demand could shape whether the program expands beyond its initial $1 billion allocation.

Federal tax credit

Meanwhile, a provision of the broad tax and spending measure President Donald Trump signed in July could create a significant new source of funding for families who want to send their kids to private school — but only in states that choose to participate.

The measure creates a new federal tax credit for people who contribute to nonprofits that award private school scholarships to K-12 students. Taxpayers in any state can get the tax credits, but only by donating to organizations in participating states.

Last month, federal officials announced that 23 states had opted in to the program; all of them, except for Virginia, are led by Republicans. However, the federal list did not include Colorado, where Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said in December that his state also would participate. North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein also has said he will opt in. The Democratic governors of New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin have said their states will not participate.

In Pennsylvania, where one of the nation’s largest state-level tax credit scholarship programs already operates, scholarship granting organizations say that the state needs to opt in to the federal program to meet the growing demand. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has been a supporter of vouchers generally, but he has not said whether Pennsylvania will opt into the program.

Keisha Jordan, president and CEO of the Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia, said that more than 200,000 Pennsylvania children live in neighborhoods where the local public schools are low performing.

Despite serving thousands of students, she said, “every year scholarship organizations like Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia still have to turn students down because we don’t have enough funding to meet the demand.”

Jordan argues the new federal tax credit could help close that gap. “The demand is here,” she said. “Pennsylvania taxpayers will participate, but their money could go to another state. Why not keep it here?”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear a significant climate lawsuit in which oil companies are seeking to avoid being tried in state court. 

The fate of several dozen climate lawsuits brought against oil companies by state and local governments could hinge on the decision, which could determine whether the cases can be tried in state court. The suits seek to force oil companies to pay billions of dollars to help governments grapple with the costs of climate-related damages, such as natural disasters, rising sea levels and drought.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Suncor Energy Inc., which have been sued by the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, argue the case should be dismissed because they followed national regulations when extracting and selling their products. Oil companies have claimed that federal rules around greenhouse gas emissions should preempt efforts to sue them under state laws.

Some oil companies have previously attempted to have climate cases removed to federal courts, petitions that have been denied by federal circuit courts and the Supreme Court.

But the roughly three dozen state and local governments that have sued oil companies in recent years argue that the cases belong in state court. Many of the lawsuits cite state consumer protection and fraud laws, along with evidence that the companies knew about the risks of climate change while downplaying it in public.

“We had hoped that the Supreme Court would let the decision of the lower courts rest, but we’re also confident in our case and looking forward for the chance to have it heard,” Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett said in an interview. “I do think it’s a significant case. If the motion to dismiss is not granted, then we can get into discovery and learn exactly what Exxon and Suncor knew and when they knew it.”

The states of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont, as well as many more cities, counties and tribes, have all filed lawsuits against oil companies over climate change. 

If the Supreme Court were to rule that the Boulder case is preempted by federal law, it would be a major win for oil companies, who have long claimed that national regulations such as the Clean Air Act should supersede state laws. Such a ruling could also prevent many of the other cases from moving forward in state courts.

The case could also be complicated by the Trump administration’s recent repeal of the endangerment finding, the scientific determination that underpinned the federal government’s regulations of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. With the feds stepping back from climate regulation, some observers believe the oil companies will have a harder time claiming that state lawsuits fall under the scope of federal policy.

In a written statement to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prior to the repeal of the endangerment finding, a group of investor-owned electric utilities raised that concern. The Edison Electric Institute, in its letter to the agency, said that federal greenhouse gas emissions helped “protect the power sector” from legal claims by “displacing” lawsuits over companies’ role in contributing to climate change. 

“Should EPA remove its regulation of [greenhouse gases], it increases the likelihood that environmental non-governmental organizations, advocacy groups, citizen groups, and other parties will seek to bring new tort suits and other litigation to test the bounds of continued [Clean Air Act] displacement of federal common law,” the group wrote.

Editor’s Note: The story has been corrected to reflect that the Supreme Court in 2023 denied oil companies’ attempts to remove the case to federal court.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took more steps Monday to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, announcing two additional interagency agreements with other departments that will transfer more of its responsibilities to those agencies.

Under the agreements, the agency will partner with the State Department on foreign gift and contract reporting and with the Department of Health and Human Services on family engagement and school support programs.

The 46-year-old department signed seven other interagency agreements in 2025 as part of an ongoing effort to dismantle itself, including with State and HHS, as well as Labor and Interior. 

“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, blasted the additional interagency agreements in a Monday statement. 

McMahon “is unlawfully dismantling the Education Department by moving programs and offices to other federal agencies despite a clear warning from Congress that she lacks the authority to do so,” Gittleman said. 

She added that “these moves come as the Trump Administration has attempted to fire large numbers of career public servants in these very offices — and is now trying to shift their critical work across multiple federal agencies with no educational expertise.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also lambasted the announcement.

“These illegal agreements aren’t just creating pointless new bureaucracy that burdens our already-overworked teachers and schools,” she said in a statement Monday. “They are actively jeopardizing resources and support that students and families count on and are entitled to under the law.”

Foreign gifts and contracts

The Education Department clarified in fact sheets that in both agreements, it would “maintain all statutory responsibilities” and oversight of the programs involved. 

Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, colleges and universities receiving federal financial assistance are required to disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued above $250,000 annually. 

Under the agreement, State will help the Education Department in managing its foreign funding reporting portal, where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing such transactions. 

State will also “use its national security and foreign national academic admissions expertise to review and assess the industry’s compliance with the law, share data with the public and federal stakeholders, and identify potential threats,” the Education Department said. 

HHS portfolio grows

Under the agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS will take on a “growing role” in administering several programs that are currently housed under the Education Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. 

The programs include the School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV), School Safety National Activities, Ready to Learn Programming, Full-Service Community Schools, Promise Neighborhoods and Statewide Family Engagement Centers, the Education Department said. 

The School Emergency Response to Violence program helps schools recover from a violent event, according to the department. 

Ready to Learn Programming “supports the development of educational television and digital media targeted at preschool and early elementary school children and their families,” according to the department.  

The Full-Service Community Schools program offers academic, social and health services for students in high-poverty areas and their families. 

According to the department, a Promise Neighborhood is a “place-based, collective impact approach to improving results for children and families.” The program aims to make it so that participating children “have access to great schools and strong systems of family and community support.”

The Statewide Family Engagement Centers program seeks to provide financial assistance to organizations helping state and local educational agencies to improve family engagement.

Abolishing the department

Since taking office, Trump has sought to take an axe to the agency in his quest to move education “back to the states.” The U.S. Supreme Court in July 2025 temporarily greenlit mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier that year.

That plan, outlined in a March 2025 executive order signed by Trump, called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department.

Meanwhile, Congress earlier this year rebuked Trump’s request to dramatically slash funding for the department as he and his administration seek to do away with it.

Trump signed a measure earlier in February that funds the department at $79 billion this fiscal year — roughly $217 million more than the agency’s fiscal 2025 funding level and a whopping $12 billion above what Trump sought.

Though the spending package does not offer ironclad language to prevent the outsourcing of the Education Department’s responsibilities to other agencies, the measure does direct the Education Department and the agencies that are part of the transfers to provide biweekly briefings to lawmakers on the implementation of any interagency agreements.

The American Birkebeiner “Birkie” cross-country ski races from Cable to Hayward just concluded on Saturday, Feb. 21. It was the 52nd annual running of the marathon races.

The Birkie is part of the Worldloppet Ski Federation, an international association of marathon cross-country ski races held in Europe, the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, China, and Japan.

There were over 600 skiers at the 2026 Birkie who are Worldloppet Ski Federation Passport Members: those who are officially documenting their Worldloppet races to qualify as masters, or those who have skied in 10 Worldloppet races. Many of those Passport skiers are Americans, but they also include several hundred international skiers.

International skiers expressed concern about traveling to the Birkebeiner this year, during the federal immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation Executive Director Ben Popp reported receiving several calls from international skiers prior to the 52nd Birkie after the international skiers had viewed the demonstrations in nearby Minneapolis and videos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti being shot and killed by federal agents. 

Several international skiers who came to Hayward told the Examiner they were very aware of the news coming out of Minneapolis, and there had been some concerns raised, but not enough to keep them from participating in the sport they love.

Thomas Hejek and his wife, Blanca Hajkova of the Czech Republic spoke with the Examiner  on Wednesday, Feb. 18, as Hejek was waiting to ski in an open event on Thursday, and both he and his wife prepared to participate in the marathon races on Saturday.

Hejek has skied in several Worldloppet races, including races in Canada and Japan. Their trip to the Birkie was organized over a month ago, before the shooting of Renee Good.

Hejek said it wasn’t the violence in Minneapolis that caused the most concern for skiers in his country, but rather the overall perception of politics in America.

“We know that most of our friends just don’t want to come right now to the United States, not just because of Minneapolis, but because of the politics,” said Hejek. “But it’s not, it wasn’t a big deal for us, because I think that mostly the people here, around the Birkie and in Hayward and Cable are really lovely and really friendly, because I know it from two years ago, so we didn’t think about not going to the United States.”

He added, “Sometimes, some of my friends were surprised that we were going. But you know, we also in the Czech Republic have a very bad government, and we just have to deal with it, and also the situation in Minneapolis, our friends from the United States were warning us to go directly with plane to Duluth or something, but we just fly to Minneapolis, and took the car and just drive here. We didn’t stay in Minneapolis because we were a little bit scared.”

On Thursday, Feb. 19, Esa Sainio of Finland completed his first Birkie Open marathon race. Recently, he completed a race in Canada and drove from Ottawa to Hayward, and after the Birkie, he intended to ski in Sweden.

“We saw everything that was happening here,” he said of news coming from America, especially out of Minneapolis. “But one of our friends from Minnesota said it wasn’t so bad from there. Everything is not so bad.”

Several skiers spoke with the Examiner on Friday, Feb. 20 at the Worldloppet Foundation Breakfast featuring international skiers.

Epp Paal of Estonia is the CEO of the Worldloppet Ski Foundation. She didn’t think international skiers had concerns about American political upheaval in coming to the 2026 Birkie.

“Do skiers like the current politics of the U.S.? I don’t believe so, but they like the races, and they come to the race itself,” she said. “So I don’t believe that this is something to do with politics. Just love of skiing is bringing them here.”

She added, “I think this Worldloppet is all about love of skiing and friendship. And this drives these people, and they know so many other fellow skiers from the U.S., and many have developed deep friendships here, so it doesn’t really matter for them.”

Jaagup and Janek Vana, two brothers from Tartu, Estonia, said they had not seen much news from Minneapolis before coming, and they didn’t have concerns about politics or immigration. Their biggest concern was whether there would be enough snow for the Birkie races.

“We just hoped they didn’t cancel the races because of snow,” said Jaagup. “The violence didn’t, doesn’t really matter to us. It wasn’t a concern.”

Janek added that because Hayward is a small, rural area, the two brothers didn’t think there would be anything to be concerned about.

Alena Motyckova of the Czech Republic, was scheduled to ski the Birkie Classic, 53K race on Saturday.

“Of course, we watched what was going on,” she said, “but we just flew [into the] Minneapolis airport, and then we got a car and drove up here, so we did not really worry. It did not make us think to even reconsider coming here to the state, but of course, we took it seriously, like the chances of being stopped by immigration, but it went smoothly.”

However, one of the Czech Republic skiers in Motyckova’s original group didn’t receive the required immigration documents and couldn’t attend.

Jan Vondras of the Czech Republic, one of the seven who did make it, said he had emailed Popp and other Birkie staff discussing the journey to Hayward and concerns over immigration.

“Ben said, ‘If you have any troubles with the immigration officers or police, just call me,’ so we were quite OK that we had somebody behind us who could help us, but actually, nothing happened,” said Vondras.

Gerard Agnellet of France, winner of the 2025 men’s Birkie skate, who placed fourth on Saturday, talked to the Examiner via a translator.

“We knew it would be different from past years,” he said, “so we were a little more surprised and concerned about our paperwork to get into the US, but there was no problem at all. It went smoothly as in past years.”

Fabian Stocek of the Czech Republic won the Birkie Classic in 2025 and again on Saturday.

On the ride from Minneapolis airport to Hayward for the Birkie, Stocek said, he passed a Department of Homeland Security vehicle, but he wasn’t worried.

Stocek has lived in the U.S. for seven years and has a good relationship with a host family in the Hayward area who houses him when he competes.

“I think they (his host family) were more concerned about my behalf than I was,” he said. “so I do follow the U.S. news quite a bit, and I think for me it was, they were like, ‘Oh, watch out, they’re checking phones when you get in’ and, and I thought, OK, I mean, I’ve lived in the U.S. for seven years, so I wasn’t as worried.” 

 At the Worldloppet Foundation breakfast, a Swiss skier said he didn’t want to make any comments to the press in case his words were noticed by immigration officials and caused him problems later.

Dan Mitchell of Hayward, who attended the breakfast, said he recently skied in Worldloppet races in France and Germany and noticed that all flights to and in Europe were full, but the flight back from London to O’Hare Airport in Chicago had several empty seats.

A hearing is set for Tuesday in a federal lawsuit led by Louisiana seeking to further restrict access to mifepristone by asking the courts to stop abortion pills from being mailed across the country. 

The Department of Justice has argued plaintiffs lack standing to bring the case and asked the judge to halt legal proceedings until the Food and Drug Administration wraps up a review of the medication. 

Hundreds of studies have concluded that the drug is safe and effective for abortions early in pregnancy, but a paper released by a conservative think tank last year compelled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to order a reevaluation of mifepristone.  

The state of Louisiana and a woman who said her ex-boyfriend made her take abortion medication sued the FDA in October and asked for a preliminary injunction against a 2023 rule that allows abortion pills to be prescribed through telehealth or mailed to patients, and pharmacies to apply for certification to dispense mifepristone. 

Julie Kay, the founder and CEO of legal advocacy group Reproductive Futures, told States Newsroom the lawsuits in Louisiana and elsewhere are “thinly veiled attempts” to block access to telehealth medication abortion. 

“We’ve seen that telemedicine abortion has become incredibly popular in all 50 states and particularly vital for women in under-resourced areas,” Kay said. 

Missouri, Idaho, Kansas, Texas and Florida are also suing the FDA over mifepristone’s regulations and asking the courts to restrict or rescind approval of the drug altogether.

Nearly 30% of abortions provided in the first half of 2025 were through telehealth, according to the Society of Family Planning’s latest #WeCount report. 

By June 2025, about 15,000 abortions per month were provided by physicians shielded by state laws, allowing them to prescribe abortion medication remotely to people living in states where abortion is banned or restricted, the report found. Shield laws protecting health care professionals from out-of-state investigations have held up in court so far, despite efforts from prosecutors in Texas and Louisiana. 

Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill vowed to defend anti-abortion laws in her state, which has had a ban with no exceptions for rape or incest since August 2022. She indicted a California doctor in January, accusing him of mailing abortion pills to Rosalie Markezich, a plaintiff in the lawsuit before federal courts. 

Lawyers for Louisiana argue that the Biden administration’s decision to nix the in-person dispensation requirement for mifepristone is an affront to states that ban abortion. 

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Erik Baptist framed the lawsuit as an intimate partner violence issue, saying Markezich’s former boyfriend ordered abortion pills online from Dr. Rémy Coeytaux in California without any in-person interaction. 

“So what this lawsuit would do is protect women across the country, in particular in Louisiana, from this mail-order abortion scheme that enables and emboldens people in coercive situations, such as men and abusers who can now obtain these drugs through remote means,” Baptist said. 

Reproductive coercion — when an abusive partner controls a person’s bodily autonomy — has been brought up in recent legal challenges to abortion pill access by other GOP attorneys general in bids to restrict mifepristone, according to Rachel Rebouché, a University of Texas at Austin law professor who specializes in reproductive rights. 

“There’s really not evidence that people are being coerced or forced into taking pills. It’s, of course, awful if someone has felt coerced, but I’m not sure it changes the argument of what the FDA should do as an agency committed to reviewing evidence,” Rebouché said. 

For their part, DOJ attorneys have said an injunction would interfere with the FDA review and Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies, setting off an avalanche of other lawsuits. 

“Plaintiffs now threaten to short circuit the agency’s orderly review and study of the safety risks of mifepristone by asking this Court for an immediate stay of the 2023 REMS Modification approved three years ago,” they wrote in a memo filed on Jan. 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. 

Kay said she views the Trump administration’s motion to pause the case as a legal delay tactic that is more about politics than science, because most Americans believe abortion should be accessible. A Pew Research Center poll from June 2025 showed 63% of respondents said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

“This federal administration is very aware of that popularity, and I think they’re saying they want to wait until after the midterms,” Kay said.

Baptist said the FDA can conduct their review while the in-person requirement is restored. 

Mifepristone’s manufacturers intervened in the case earlier this month, Louisiana Illuminator reported. But unlike the federal government, GenBioPro and Danco, the companies behind the generic and name brand versions of the drug, asked the court to dismiss Louisiana’s lawsuit entirely. 

In a memo filed on Tuesday, Feb. 17, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the 2023 regulatory change “was intended to authorize a direct attack” on anti-abortion states. 

The filing also rejects arguments that Louisiana and Markezich lack standing in the same way that a group of anti-abortion doctors did in a lawsuit against the FDA over mifepristone’s previous regulations, according to a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Justices rebuffed the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s requests but did not rule on the merits of the case.

Baptist also said judicial panels on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana — a conservative-leaning court where this lawsuit could go next — have twice ruled that it was “arbitrary and capricious” for the FDA to allow abortion medication without an in-person doctor visit. 

In Louisiana’s corner are major anti-abortion players: Students for Life of America, 60 Republican members of Congress, 21 GOP attorneys general and the Ethics and Public Policy Center filed briefs backing the state. 

Rebouché, the University of Texas professor, said there would be conflict between the federal courts if the district court judge rules in favor of Louisiana. There are nearly a dozen lawsuits over abortion pills seeking to restrict and deregulate mifepristone, States Newsroom reported.

Guttmacher Institute Principal Federal Policy Adviser Anna Bernstein said in a statement Friday that reinstating the in-person dispensation requirement for mifepristone would hinder abortion access. 

“If access to telehealth and mifepristone by mail is curtailed, more patients would be pushed toward in-clinic care, straining provider capacity and increasing wait times in an already chaotic landscape,” she said. “Given that travel is out of reach for many people, the result would likely be increased delays and more people unable to get the abortion care they need and deserve.” 

Kelcie Moseley-Morris contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday to honor  families whose loved ones were killed by noncitizens, but spent most of the event complaining about his approval ratings and amplifying the falsehood that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

While signed Monday, the proclamation designated the day earlier as one to honor such families, coinciding with the anniversary of the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley on Feb. 22, 2024, by a Venezuelan immigrant. The man was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for her murder.

The White House event came on the eve of Trump’s State of the Union, where he is expected to not only address immigration policy – as the Department of Homeland Security has been shut down since Feb. 14 – but also last week’s Supreme Court decision that found he exceeded his authority for tariffs. 

Congress is gridlocked on approving annual funding for DHS after an immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens last month.

Trump criticized Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Monday for calling for an end to the immigration enforcement operation in his city after Renee Good was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer on Jan. 7.

“I watched these people saying, ‘we want to protect murderers,’” Trump said, mischaracterizing state and local officials’ positions against aggressive immigration enforcement. “I don’t get it, there’s something sick. They’re sick. Can’t have a country like that.” 

After the second killing, of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, congressional Democrats withheld support for DHS funding unless constraints could be placed on immigration enforcement tactics.

The proclamation reaffirms the Trump administration’s commitment to its mass deportation campaign, citing the need due to crime committed by noncitizens. Multiple studies have shown that immigrants in the U.S. commit crimes at a lower rate than the U.S. born population, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies migration.

Trump largely blamed former President Joe Biden’s immigration policy for creating a crisis. 

“They let in everybody,” he said. “They didn’t check anybody.” 

Questioning polls

Trump also expressed anger at various polls on his approval rating. Some, such as one by CNN, have shown Trump’s disapproval at more than 60% with approval ratings below 40%, marking the worst numbers of his second term.

“Fake polls,” Trump said, without offering evidence. “They were fake polls, because polls are tough. I saw one today that I’m at 40%. I’m not at 40%. I’m at much higher than that. The real polls say ‘you kill everybody.’ It wouldn’t even be close. But you go through the fake polls, you go through the fake stories.”

Trump also falsely stated that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, despite then-Attorney General William Barr stating the election was secure and there was no widespread voter fraud. Trump also lost dozens of court cases attempting to challenge the election results. 

Trump goaded a mob of his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s election. 

“It was a rigged election by millions and millions of votes, a guy that never left his basement,” Trump said of Biden, who won the election at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. “Covid was a little bit of a shield. We had a lot of things going on, but it was rigged by millions of votes. We did great in that election. If that election wasn’t rigged, every single one of the people in this room right now would not be here. You’d be home with your son, daughter, family. We had a strong border.”

Trump also falsely stated that he was a victim of voter fraud in the 2024 presidential election, but that he still won because “it was too big to rig.”

“They cheated like hell,” he said of Democrats.

He criticized mail-in ballots and said it benefited Democrats. Trump said because of that, a national voter ID law is needed, and he pushed for Congress to pass the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship, among other things.

“They won’t approve voter ID,” he said of Democrats. “They won’t approve proof of citizenship. They won’t approve no mail-in ballots, even though they know it’s crooked as hell.” 

Support for Trump immigration agenda

The families, referred to as angel families, have had various loved ones killed by a person who was not a U.S. citizen. In response, they have lobbied for immigration restrictions. 

“I’m sick and tired of hearing these Democratic politicians stand up on these podiums and say how sorry they are for seeing these criminal illegal aliens being ripped apart from their families,” said Jody Jones, whose brother was shot and killed by an immigrant. “What about us? What about the American family?”

Several other family members spoke, including Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips. One of the first bills that Trump signed in his second term was a mandatory detention bill for immigrants charged and arrested on petty crimes that was named for Riley. 

Her murder set off a national debate about immigration during the 2024 presidential campaign because the man charged with her murder, came into the country in 2022, during Biden’s term. 

“Laken was the most responsible, hard-working, kind, selfless, beautiful Christian, and she wasn’t somebody that put herself in bad positions,” Phillips said.

Some of the family members who spoke also expressed their belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. 

Marie Vega, whose son was shot and killed by an immigrant, said she was excited when the 2024 presidential election results came in. She said she fully supports the president and repeated an abbreviation for Trump’s political movement known as Make America Great Again.

“Although you were cheated out of the second term — by the way, you won that election as well, and we know it — I knew the third term was going to be epic,” she said. “And here we are. MAGA.” 

Staff members at two Wisconsin mental health clinics are seeking union representation after what some employees describe as policy changes that have increased client caseloads and reduced one-on-one care for clients.

The clinics — one in Madison and one in West Allis — are owned by Wisconsin-based Rogers Behavioral Health. The Oconomowoc-based nonprofit organization operates a network of mental health hospitals, residential treatment clinics and outpatient clinics in 10 states.

Starting Monday, officials with the National Labor Relations Board will hold a hearing in Milwaukee to set union election dates for 63 employees in West Allis and 35 in Madison.

The hearing is expected to take up to three days, according to documents filed with the NLRB by a lawyer representing Rogers. The case will entail “extensive testimonial and documentary evidence” about which employees at each location should be included in the vote, the attorney stated in a motion to schedule the hearing and reserve the dates.

Workers at the West Allis and Madison locations want to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers. The California-based NUHW already represents Rogers employees at three locations in California as well as one in Pennsylvania.

Three employees at the West Allis clinic have been fired, according to the union, which has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB. The union is accusing Rogers of violating federal labor law by retaliating against the terminated health professionals for supporting the union.

The Wisconsin Examiner sent email messages to Rogers Friday morning, Feb. 20, seeking comment about the union drive, and at the invitation of the organization’s communications office sent five questions Friday afternoon. Rogers has not responded; this report will be updated with comments Rogers supplies.

Clinic employees cite increased caseloads

Employees involved in the union drive said in interviews that they and their colleagues enjoyed their jobs and caring for their patients. But recent changes, they said, have made their work more difficult and didn’t benefit patients.

“When I first started, people were pretty happy and satisfied with their roles,” said T’Anna Holst, a therapist who works at the West Allis clinic. “As time goes on, caseloads kept increasing for therapists.”

Other program changes reduced patients’ ability to have individual time with their clinicians, which “was really unfortunate for us, but also for the patients, who were expecting that when they come to our program,” Holst said.

“All of the changes were about increasing the number of patients that were coming into the building,” said Stephanie Lohman, a nurse practitioner. “It did not seem to have a cohesive plan and no plan would be communicated.”

Lohman said she is one of the three employees fired from the West Allis clinic, and that her termination came the Monday after she and nearly a dozen other coworkers had presented a petition seeking union recognition. When she directly asked the upper level executive who fired her, she said, she was explicitly told  she was being dismissed “without cause.”

“Our local leaders, including my direct boss, were not aware this was happening,” Lohman said, adding that she was not given time to prepare notes in order to transfer coverage for the patients in her care.

Patient advocacy

At the Madison clinic, Erin Quinlan is a behavioral specialist whose job includes assisting therapists and helping to conduct group therapy sessions.

“The people that I work with are incredible,” Quinlan said. “They care very, very deeply about the work that they do and having a positive impact on the lives of patients.”

After she was hired in July 2024, “Caseloads increased and individual time with patients was decreasing,” Quinlan said. “I just became concerned about how that was impacting our being able to support those patients.”

Coworkers shared those concerns, she said.

Employees said they were left with the impression that the changes that concerned them were coming from higher up in the organization’s hierarchy, not their local managers.

Lohman said that in measuring staff productivity, the organization moved to relying on “metrics like visits per day.” That replaced a system that took into account that some patients needed more time than others, she said.

Increased caseloads were presented as ways to increase the number of patients being served, Lohman said, but instead, employees were working “to their maximum capacity, ignoring actual patient or worker needs.”

At the clinic level, “Rogers is run by caring professionals,” she said. “Despite the corporate push to do metric care, patient-centered care continues to be done.”

All three employees said they and their coworkers believed forming a union and being able to bargain collectively would give them a stronger voice as advocates for their patients.

“I take being an advocate and speaking up as a very important part of my job,” Quinlan said. She added that she routinely sought to raise concerns with “anyone who would listen, including management.”

She said she got no response, however. “It was because I didn’t really see any return communication, that was when I made the decision to go to the union,” Quinlan said.

Both the Madison and West Allis groups initially petitioned for Rogers to voluntarily recognize the union, citing large majorities of supporters. The organization rejected those requests, and union supporters then sent petitions for elections to the NLRB.

Union represents other Rogers workers

The NUHW grew out of a California health care union that was founded in the 1930s and subsequently joined what would later become the Service Employees International Union. After an acrimonious split from SEIU in 2009, the National Union of Healthcare Workers formed as an independent union.

An unsigned memo from the organization urging employees to vote against the union was briefly posted at the Madison clinic in the days after members petitioned for union representation Jan. 23. The Wisconsin Examiner obtained a photograph of the memo, which employees said was later taken down.

The memo describes the union as having “no experience or connection in Wisconsin.” It does not state that Rogers employees in four other U.S. clinics are now represented by the union.

Employees at a Rogers mental health and addiction services clinic in Walnut Creek, California, voted for the union to represent them in 2023 and settled a first contract in 2024.

“It’s an excellent contract,” said NUHW’s communications director, Matt Artz, and included “substantial salary increases and caseload limits,” according to the union’s website.

After employees at Rogers clinics in Los Angeles and San Diego petitioned for union representation, the union was recognized voluntarily at those locations, which then negotiated contracts similar to the agreement at Walnut Creek, Artz said. In December 2025, a Rogers clinic in Philadelphia also voluntarily recognized the union after being petitioned by employees there. 

“This is in response to the recent arrests of four local community members, which have impacted not only multiple families but also many others throughout the surrounding region. We are demanding details about the nature of the advance notice of federal officers used to notify the Eau Claire (County) Sheriff’s Department, as well as body cam footage from the officers on the scene,” said Gerardo Licon, a member of the advocacy group El Centro de Conexion de Chippewa Valley.

Licon was speaking to a group of roughly 100 at an ICE Out Now! demonstration near the Altoona City Police Department on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 21.

The protest, organized by area Chippewa Valley advocacy groups, was responding  to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detaining four people on Tuesday, Feb. 17.

The coalition is questioning the level of cooperation between local law enforcement, including the Eau Claire County Sheriff’s Department and the city of Altoona Police Department, with ICE, as well as the narrative offered by Eau Claire County Sheriff Dave Riewestahl about what transpired on Feb.17

Riewestahl said in a press release late Feb. 17 that his office was contacted by ICE agents who said they would be at a construction site in the city of Altoona, near the city of Eau Claire, to arrest a suspect who had allegedly assaulted a law enforcement officer.

Riewestahl later told the Examiner the construction site was off 9 Mile Creek Road, just over a quarter mile from the Altoona Elementary School.

The Examiner heard concerns expressed by local residents that the enforcement action occurred in the afternoon, near dismissal time at the school, but in a voicemail to the Examiner, Altoona School Superintendent Dr. Heidi Elopaulos said the school district had heard no concerns.

“The law enforcement activity that occurred in our community on Feb. 17 had no involvement with and no impact on the School District of Altoona,” she said.

After ICE agents attempted to arrest the suspect, Riewestahl said, four individuals fled the construction site, and one was apprehended.

The sheriff said three who fled the scene entered a residence in the town of Washington, confronted a homeowner, then went into the garage and barricaded themselves inside. The homeowner then locked the door between the house and the garage.

Riewestahl said his office was called to address a criminal trespass to a dwelling, and then county deputies requested assistance from  Altoona police.

Upon the request of the homeowner, the sheriff said, his officers entered the home and attempted to gain voluntary compliance with the three individuals in the garage, but when verbal requests failed, the officers used pepperballs, and the three surrendered.

None of the three were charged with criminal trespass, said the sheriff, because the homeowner didn’t want to press charges.

The three individuals were subsequently turned over to ICE agents.

“In talking with ICE, they said they had the authority to take them in custody for immigration activity, so we turned them over to immigration and immigration took all four of those individuals,” Riewestahl told the Examiner.

In January, after ICE agents were spotted  at the Eau Claire County Courthouse, Riewestahl told local media that his department’s policy manual for field services (patrol) and security services (jail) regarding immigration status directs patrol officers not to detain anyone accused of a “civil  violation of federal immigration laws or related civil warrants,” and that the jail is only allowed to hold individuals who have “been charged with a federal crime,” or have been issued “a warrant, affidavit of probable cause or removal order.”

Several at the demonstration said that earlier in the year, both the sheriff’s department and the Altoona Police Department had said they would not cooperate with ICE.

It is not clear if there was any level of cooperation between the two local law enforcement agencies and ICE other than possibly the sheriff allowing ICE to take the three whom local officers had removed from the garage.

Mireya Sigala, another advocate with El Centro, introduced a man she said was the brother of one of the three. The man was not identified, and he spoke in Spanish, which was translated by Licon.

“Thank you so much for the support you’re giving us, the immigrants,” he said. “Supposedly, they’re looking for criminals, but the criminals aren’t working, and our mistake was to go out and work.”

The man said his brother had never committed a crime and did not  owe anyone money.

“I felt terrible when he called and told me, ‘ICE is here, help me,’” he said. “I felt like trash. I felt like impotent that I couldn’t help him. I didn’t know what to do. There was a woman who gave him refuge in the garage, and I really appreciate that. To my understanding, after that they forcefully took them out of there.”

The brother’s version of events of a woman offering “refuge” appears to contradict the sheriff’s version that the homeowner complained of the three people trespassing  in the Town of Washington home.

Licon also said the advocates are challenging the account offered in the Feb. 17 press release and demanded that “a public statement from both Eau Claire sheriff’s office and Altoona Police Department correcting false statements and the narrative that was published on the news stories after the event, accountability and apology for working with ICE after explicitly stating they wouldn’t do that.”

The Examiner reached out to Sheriff Riewestahl for a response.

The organizers of the event, Licon said, are stressing a clear message to local law enforcement that it “exists to serve and protect the communities in which they operate.”

“They (organizers) argue the cooperation with federal immigration officers erodes trust, discourages residents from reporting crimes, and undermines public safety for everyone,” said Licon. “Our message is simple: law enforcement should be focused on protecting local community members. They work for us, not ICE.”

He added, “Public safety depends on trust, and that trust is compromised when local public safety agencies are seen to be actively assisting federal immigration enforcement officers. Given the lack of dignity and the dehumanization that immigration officers and federal agencies have demonstrated across the country toward law-abiding community members, we cannot allow these unaccountable and undertrained federal agents anywhere near our community.”

Licon also said the advocates have a list of three other demands:

* ICE and immigration officers leave Eau Claire County.

* Release any person arrested without a corresponding legal warrant signed by a judge, and a proof of a warrant used for arrest.

* That both the city police and county sheriff respond to records requests, specifically how agencies were notified by ICE, decisions made to collaborate with ICE, and body camera footage.

None of the four detained Feb. 17 were sent to the Eau Claire County Jail. The man who identified himself as the  brother of one of the three taken Feb. 17 said his brother had been taken to “Bloomington,” presumably Bloomington, Minnesota, where federal immigration offices are located.

Denise Bustanante, another advocate, said if the sheriff’s office doesn’t know who ICE was originally intending to arrest, nor the immigration status of those detained on Feb. 17, then it is possible that ICE had detained U.S. citizens.

“For all we know, those four people could be U.S. citizens in ICE detention right now,” she said.

Dang Yang, a resident for 22 years whose parents came as refugees from Laos to the U.S.  in 1979, recounted how a local Hmong man was detained by ICE for over an hour even though the man is a legal citizen.

“On Monday, Jan. 5, a local Hmong man from our community was detained at his place of employment by ICE in Eau Claire,” said Yang. “He was handcuffed; he was questioned, and even after presenting his valid Wisconsin driver’s license to ICE agents, they spent nearly an hour interrogating him. They asked him about his citizenship over and over again. In addition to that, they also attempted to interrogate him about what he knew regarding the whereabouts of any undocumented Hmong community members in the area. He was finally released after the hour-long interrogation. But the arrest is never the point. The arrest is never the point. Because it’s the impact of the intimidation and the impact of the harassment that results in people hiding away, people afraid to go to the grocery store. People are afraid to talk to their neighbors, afraid to speak up when something is wrong, afraid to be seen and deathly afraid to be heard.”

Yang said his parents told him that back in Southeast Asia, they didn’t talk to the police because of fear of intimidation, and now he sees the same type of intimidation being used by ICE.

“Growing up, they would tell me how lucky we were to have police that were relatively helpful, to have a local government that was relatively competent compared to what they had known in their home country,” said Yang, “But today, the echoes of the past return, and we still see numerous examples of federal law enforcement being just as corrupt, just as unaccountable and just as problematic with their interactions, because they could lead to people being disappeared.This is not the exception of what we have seen over the last year. This is the rule. This is why we’re angry when we see law enforcement side by side with ICE. The association itself, without any details, erodes the trust that my parents so desperately sought when they left their homes in Southeast Asia. But me, today, I cannot deny that I’m afraid, but despite that, I refuse to hide away.”

State Rep.  Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) expressed  his support for the local immigrant community saying, “Nobody in the Chippewa Valley ever has to prove their humanity in order to deserve to be safe in our community.”

He added, “I just want to thank you all for the courage that you are demonstrating, leaning into our long and storied history here of true working-class solidarity. Courage is contagious when you demonstrate it by standing up for all of our neighbors, including our immigrant neighbors. You are sharing that courage with the people around you, and while we have that long history of working-class solidarity, ICE is not some time-honored institution with this storied history in the Chippewa Valley. It is less than 30 years old, and it serves no purpose other than to be the sharp and violent edge of Trump’s fascism and authoritarianism, and so I am only here to say, I see you, I hear you, I appreciate you. I encourage you to continue.”

This story was updated at 10:04 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 23.